The Marvel Move
Bob Iger’s bold, big-budget acquisition of Pixar in 2007 would’ve been a career-defining move for any other CEO. For Iger, it was just a first step… an almost-prophetic glimpse into the era of corporate acquisition and IP consolidation that now powers the “Content Wars”.
Naturally, the CEO’s next industry-resetting move was the $4 billion purchase of Marvel in 2009. You can imagine why that might’ve been a puzzling move to analysts at the time. Most of Marvel’s well-known heroes (Spider-Man, the X-Men, Daredevil, Hulk, and the Fantastic Four) had already had their movie rights licensed to other studios by a down-on-its-luck Marvel in the ’90s; likewise, Marvel had already sold exclusive east-of-the-Mississippi theme park rights to many of its characters to Disney’s biggest competitor, prohibiting Disney’s flagship resort in Orlando from featuring Marvel’s most well-known characters even if they’d wanted to…
And as for Marvel’s in-house, start-up movie studio, the heroes it had left to leverage were – compared to Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Hulk – practically unknown in pop culture, like the star of the only film they’d yet produced: 2008’s Iron Man.
Suffice to say that Iger’s instincts had been right. Three dozen films later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the seventh highest grossing media franchise of all time, surpassing the Wizarding World not just in box office, but in retail and home entertainment revenue; and astoundingly, “Marvel” today feels as “Disney” as Mickey Mouse. Even so, aside from meet-and-greets in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland, Imagineering seemed to move very slowly in incorporating Marvel superheroes into Disney Parks…
In Leslie Iwerks’ The Imagineering Story, then-president of Imagineering Bruce Vaughn recalled being tasked with getting the newly-acquired Marvel properties rolled into Disney Parks – and quickly. Since Walt Disney World’s use of Marvel characters is hampered by Universal’s existing licensing agreement, the obvious solution would be to instead focus the characters’ introduction at the Disneyland Resort. The problem was – where?
At an early 2016 brainstorm, Vaughn and Imagineer Joe Rohde (later serving as Portfolio Executive for Marvel’s integration in the parks) reportedly mulled over the question, determining that with the very few expansion pads available to Disney in Anaheim, the difficulty of folding in Marvel heroes was doubled – even if you could find space for one superhero ride, where would you put the next? Then-president of the resort Michael Colglazier then reportedly offered up a solution that fans would never have thought possible….
In early 2016, a very strange rumor began to circulate among fans. Sources reported that an attraction based on Guardians of the Galaxy, the surprise hit Marvel superhero movie from 2014, would replace the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure.
To be clear, the rumor was instantly derided by many as insanity, and most fans wrote it off as a prank. So outrageously stupid did it sound that a futuristic sci-fi superhero movie would take over a 1920s art-deco hotel reigning over Hollywood Land – and indeed, all of a newly-redesigned Golden-Age-of-California park – many in the Disney Parks fan community literally, sincerely imagined that the rumor was cooked up just to see how much fury and chaos such an obviously contrived bit of gossip could provoke.
“A decade ago, maybe!” They proclaimed. But c’mon. California Adventure was fixed! It was saved! No more irreverent jokes, no more modern music… It had a new lease on life with a refreshed, reverent, historic California story. Guardians of the Galaxy taking over the E-Ticket Twilight Zone Tower of Terror? Decimating the careful continuity and storytelling Disney just spent over a billion dollars to craft? A sci-fi superhero ride looming over a 1920s Los Angeles, and serving as the final stop of the Red Car Trolley?
But behind the scenes, Imagineering portfolio executive Joe Rohde said to Iwerks that after that brainstorm wherein Colglazier had recommended a redo of Tower of Terror, he walked into the park to make observations. He recalled thinking to himself, “You know, there are not many details on this building that make it look like a hotel. And if you took those details off, it zeros out really fast to just being a big abstract mass – which means all I need to do is add back a certain number of details and I can redirect what this thing even is.”
Rohde remembered immediately zeroing in on the idea that with a simple aesthetic swap, the Hollywood Tower Hotel could become a combination of power plant and fortress; a garish, nouveau riche, alien citadel of Taneleer Tivan – the “Collector” of MCU mythology – where the Guardians of the Galaxy might find themselves inadvertently “collected.” Guests might arrive to see the intergalactic wonders of the Tivan Collection only to be recruited in a prison break to cut the power, save the Guardians, and escape the collection.
An experiment in quick turnarounds, adaptability, and Imagineering’s capacity to deliver what’s “new, now, and next” into Disney Parks, Rohde’s plans got the green light.
2017 – Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
Just six months after he and Vaughn had met for initial Marvel brainstorms, Rohde was on-hand at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con in July 2016 to announce Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT, a new ride replacing the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure.
You have to imagine what that meant for Imagineering fans. Here, just four years after Disney spent $1 billion to rid California Adventure of irreverence, crass humor, and modern references, the “outrageous and irreverent” comic book characters would arrive by way of a 183-foot tall industrial sci-fi fortress, replacing one of the park’s few genuine E-Tickets dedicated to a Californian story and setting.
It’s easy to understand why Mission: BREAKOUT! read as such a reversal of – and maybe even an affront to – the work that had only just gone into rewriting the park’s foundation.
Fan backlash didn’t move the needle in the Hollywood Tower Hotel’s favor, though. Instead, the 2004 ride that had started California Adventure’s reinvestment was slowly decommissioned throughout the last few months of 2016. Still operating as the Tower of Terror on the inside, the building’s outside was already wrapped in tarps, its neon sign pulled, and the first pipes, satellite dishes, and warning stripes applied.
By time the ride closed on January 2, 2017, conversion of the Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror into a Marvel ride was halfway complete. In an unimaginable turnaround, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! opened less than six months after the last guests had ascended into the Twilight Zone – May 27, 2017.
Stripped of its art deco ornamentation, the former hotel lobby was reimagined as an introduction to the Collector’s artifacts – including glass-cased MCU hero memorabilia, animatronic creatures from around the galaxy, and Multiversal sci-fi variants of the weapons, masks, and cultural pieces you might expect to find in Rohde’s Lost Legend: The Adventurers Club; an intergalactic, superhero-tinged take on Tokyo’s Modern Marvel: Tower of Terror.
Likewise, the “library” pre-show room has transformed into Tivan’s private office where Rocket – the wise-talking, self-assessed “smart one” among the Guardians team – has broken free and (via Audio-Animatronic) enlists us to help get out the other four. Rocket hatches a plan whereby he’ll make use of our clearance level to commandeer the “Gantry Lift” that will carry us up to the Guardians’ display cases, blow the tower’s power generator, and open the cages, snatching Star Lord’s Walkman from the collection and bringing it along for good measure.
Make no mistake: the ride brilliantly repurposes the nimble ride system of California Adventure’s tower that combines the “show” shaft and “drop” shaft into one. Rather than the slow, fearful, anxiety-inducing rise and build-up of the Twilight Zone ride, Mission: BREAKOUT! immediately launches guests into one of six ride programs, each with unique screen-based visuals. A soundtrack of pop & rock songs underscore laugh-out-loud dips, drops, launches, and more.
Fittingly “irreverent,” the ride proudly rocks out to The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,”, Elvis’ “Burning Love,” and Parliament’s “Give Up The Funk” among others. It’s loud and boisterous; it’s a big, ugly, proudly-anachronistic eyesore looming over Buena Vista Street, but seemingly relishes in it. (Don’t be surprised when the “Gantry Lift” doors open to reveal the same bird’s eye view of the resort with Bradley Cooper’s Rocket raccoon now narrating by saying, “Disneyland?! But that’s thematically inconsistent!” before the elevator plunges back into darkness.)
Is Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! a fun ride? Of course. An E-Ticket? Absolutely. No one – even those who detested the concept – would ride cross-armed and pouting. But is it the right choice for Disney California Adventure? For the long-term? Will it still be relevant in 20 years? Do designers even plan for it to be around in 20 years, when the Guardians will have been rebooted on screen if the super hero fad hasn’t faded from pop culture altogether? That’s all unknown for now…
But there’s no denying that for those who saw California Adventure’s billion-dollar rebirth firsthand, it’s an almost-astounding about-face. Mission: BREAKOUT! restores disharmony to the park; it recoils from the park’s former, successful embrace of “Golden State” mythology; it stands out like a sore thumb – a flashing, rainbow-hued, cosmic anomaly of industrial hardware – and proudly so, thank you very much – looming over Hollywood Land… It’s also far from the last surprising piece of the de-California’ing of California Adventure…